The Life in the Spirit

Jude:20-21 - But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

The complete labor of salvation was accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing can be added. But once a sinner is born again by faith in Christ, he is given the responsibility for the quality and depth of his own walk of faith. And Jude gives us an exhortation here that we all need to remember and implement. We are exhorted, yea commanded, to build up ourselves upon our “most holy faith”.

What a description of our faith! Jude does not just refer to it as a generic faith, and he does not use saccharin words that resemble some high school crush, but he calls our faith “most holy”. How we tend to relegate the Christian faith to an earthly level that is measured by the things of this present world. The evangelical world has made the faith rather pedestrian and in so doing we have removed the sacred and holy essence of our faith in Christ.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Our faith in Christ is absolutely holy, and its value has no earthly measurement or comparison. And instead of using our faith to enhance our earthly lives, we should surrender our earthly lives upon the altar of Christ and allow the Spirit to build us up within the holiness of Jesus Christ. Our strength is found in the amount of surrender we offer toward the Lord Jesus and His kingdom.

But the very first thing Jude mentions after that is prayer. This is by no means some coincidence, in fact this is the imperative for the Christian life. The number of believers who spend quality time in God’s Word is very pitiful. But the number of students of God’s Word who pray with great ferocity and deep conviction is also pitiful. I have rarely found a committed pray-er who does not spend quality time in the Word, but I have often found those who spend time in Bible study whose prayer life is anemic.

Deep and searching prayer, prayer that is untethered to this world and its demands, is the single most difficult spiritual discipline in the life of a believer. Many, if not most, believers die and go to be with Christ without ever experiencing the surpassing spiritual blessing of a prayer life that is so intense, so sacrificial, and so spiritually deep that it became their very life’s breath. That is a colossal tragedy!

Prayer is the most neglected part of a believer’s life. It is seldom dealt with from the pulpit, and when it is taught it is expounded in a matter-of-fact way which reveals the depth of the one speaking. When people arrive at church having whispered a few predictable words of prayer during the week, why should we expect anyone to fall on their faces that morning in self denying and unusually penetrating prayer? In fact, the order of service gives precious little time for prayer even when we are in desperate need of God intervening in our affairs as well as the affairs of the world. The time grows short, the world grows darker, and the church grows cold, but beseeching the power of God has grown outdated. And the prayer model we now exhibit is a perfunctory set of well worn montras that is an embarrassing revelation of just how we view prayer.

And Jude adds the phrase “in the Holy Ghost”. Now in spite of our charismatic brothers, this has nothing to do with tongues or some “prayer language”. And just to illuminate what Jude is saying, the authentic language of prayer is faith. When we pray, we must pray in full and complete surrender to the Spirit and His will. And you who eschew the charismatic teachings as do I, do we also eschew the voice of the Spirit? It is possible to listen to and hear the Spirit’s voice when we are cloistered unto Him and seeking Christ with our entire beings?

In your desire to be free from doctrinal error as taught by all sorts of Charismatic streams, please do not reject the greater mysteries of communion with Christ! I do not suggest any audible voices or visible angelic visitations, and I surely do not support subjective experiences as the platform for self righteousness or even worse, new truth. But we must not allow the misuse of the faith to blind us to the glorious mysteries of communication with Christ. We have essentially relegated prayer to a “bless me” exercise, and the practice of prayer, if at all, is nudged into a tiny and convenient compartment of our fast food lifestyles.

But Jude makes it an essential and foundational element of spiritual growth. On this there can be no negotiation. But praying in the Holy Ghost is not only praying in God’s will, but it is also praying under the power and control of the Spirit of God. And that cannot be experienced but through fasting and a relentless pursuit of seeking Christ, as well as both laying hold of the kingdom of God and having God’s kingdom lay hold of you. The unquenchable thirst for more of God and letting God have more of you is the spiritual imperative for praying in the Holy Ghost.

But now Jude exhorts us to keep ourselves in the love of God. This subject is infinitely expansive. The love of God is God since God is love. How often have men attempted to confine it through defining words and limit its scope? Some theologies insist God’s love does not extend to lost sinners unless they are of the elect variety. So you only love those who you make love you? No, God loves His enemies, just as He exhorts us to do the same. I realize we are dealing in the realm of the Spirit and in the realm of the divine. But that also is my point, in that the love of God is beyond us.

Just the fact that God would love even one rebellious sinner is beyond us. The question of “Why?” can only be answered by “Who”. If God is infinite and omnipresent and omnipotent and eternal, and if God is love as well, then the connection is obvious and overwhelming. God’s love is as powerful as God Himself. And God can love a lost sinner with that same overwhelming love while at the same time passing eternal judgment upon his soul. How can He do that? Again, He is God and God is love. But so often we have removed the divine mystery because we fear being like others who add mystery to the detriment of Biblical truths.

And over the years, due to the increased literacy rate, we have moved doctrine and Bible reading to the forefront while we have relegated prayer, meditation, and a seeking heart to the museum of former disciplines. It is almost as we do not believe that communion with Christ is possible, at least on an experiential level. We have become great readers and able to absorb vast amounts of information in one sitting. On an intellectual level we are accomplished believers that can recite the important Biblical doctrines on a moment’s notice.

In our Christian schools we have Bible drills designed to encourage Bible reading and memorization. But rare are the times set aside to observe and teach about deep and elongated prayer. Perhaps that may be due to the prayer life of the average teacher? But keeping ourselves in the love of God is a self sacrificing discipline that travels way beyond loving a person's soul but hating his guts. This kind of love is unnatural and uncomfortable, and in fact, requires us to die to ourselves. There is only one place that can offer that kind of sacrifice - the cross.

And rare is the place of prayer that ventures once again to the foot of the Bleeding Lamb. The cross is now a doctrine, settled theological law, and with no need of revisiting. At Easter we can once again make mention of that holy sacrifice, but the rest of the year is reserved for more utilitarian necessities. I mean how often must we think about the cross before it gets redundant? And that is the implied attitude even if it is not the intended one.

How does Paul die daily? Is it not a daily journey to the cross? And not just to gaze afar off, but also to become absorbed in the fellowship of His sufferings and then being made conformable to His death. Therein lies the glorious mystery. That is what it means to keep one’s self in the love of God. And ultimately, the blood soaked ground beneath Golgotha’s spectacle is the foundation upon which all disciples must build up themselves on their most holy faith. The cross is the beginning and the destination, the place of death and the place of life, the hatred of man and the love of God, and with that sacrifice in his mind’s eye the Apostle Paul says,

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

More than a doctrine that saves, it is the mystery that gives life day by day by day and forever.